


Eurydice

by Jileine



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22634059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jileine/pseuds/Jileine
Summary: It wasn't just an unfortunate twist of fate that ended with Luke, haunted and despairing, dragged away from his loving home to the Inquisitors' base.It was all Jedi's fault.One of these days, Luke would make sure that no Jedi would be able to hurt him ever again.
Relationships: Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	Eurydice

She was a good fighter. Fast. Furious. Swift and deadly, like a poisonous snake lying in wait in Tattoine sands.

Luke was better. He already knew that he was going to win.

Only Luke wasn’t here. Only a nameless acolyte, fighting another nameless acolyte under the laughing eyes of the Grand Inquisitor. 

Luke Skywalker has been dead for a long time now, buried along with the charred remains of his aunt and uncle. A nameless boy has been dragged away from the farm, held on a leash of his own hair as a giant Dowutin woman cruelly squeezed his head, forcing him to move forward. It was much, much later that he learned her name – the Ninth Sister – and that the inquisitors came to Tattoine following the rumors of a Jedi hiding out in the desert. That same Jedi that brought a calamity upon their home, coming in the dead of the night and telling his aunt and uncle that they had to abandon Luke, give him away to the old man, that Luke had to flee… where? Why did he have to leave his aunt and uncle behind?

Nowhere. Jedi didn’t take him anywhere. Jedi was just a harbinger of death, with vultures following him, tearing their family apart. As the shuttle with Imperial logo was coming down, Jedi grabbed him, not even paying attention to Luke’s attempts to free himself, and tried to run away, leave aunt Beru and uncle Owen to their fate. Six inquisitors have come to their homestead to deal with the Jedi. Only two were left alive after a long, bloody battle. Even hardened steel gives way under the heat of a lightsaber, and the Jedi’s body was not made of steel.

Jedi knew them all. Called them by their names. They all used to be Jedi, but for one reason or another came to hate each other. 

Ever since that day, Luke has always remembered to never trust a Jedi. They have all been power-hungry liars obsessed with stealing children from their families and grabbing the reigns while promising peace and security, serenity and order. Such were the Jedi of the Old Republic, such were the Jedi of the Empire, now wearing the uniforms of the Inquisitors. 

Luke knew that one day he is going to destroy all of them. 

It was the Ninth Sister that ratted him out to the Grand Inquisitor.

Acolytes weren’t supposed to have names. They weren’t supposed to have anything, except for pain, and despair, and blood-boiling hatred that made their eyes flash with gold. But Luke was a freeborn son of a slave and was raised by Beru, who came from a freed family of slaves, on a legacy of Shmi Skywalker. He knew what it means to wait while surviving the whims of a capricious and furious master. That even the deepest hell holds the tiny sparks of hope. 

Mara was such hope. Same age as him, she was also here as a result of a betrayal, but this time not by the Jedi, but rather by her own flesh and blood. Mara’s mother sold her to the Inquisitors for a handful of glittersteam. 

Mara’s hair shone like blood, like the red of their lightsabers in the lava fires of Mustafar. Her pale skin flushed with golden-pink hues in the fiery shadows, and her eyes, constantly switching between moss-green and Dark-Side-gold, looked straight into his soul. 

Acolyte can’t have anything they can call their own. Don’t have rights. They live and die at the master’s command. But Luke Skywalker was a freeborn son of a slave. He had a right to love.

Mara’s lips were soft and her breath warm like a fresh bantha’s milk in his childhood memories, now half-forgotten. In the dark corners of the Inquisitorium base, where the acolytes were supposed to be trained, they could hide away from the prying eyes, and kiss endlessly, softly, gently, finding comfort in each other. To feel alive and loved, to survive one more day, to endure their endless, brutal training in this place, teeming with Dark Side and hatred that seeped through the stones under their feet. 

Mara’s hair was cut short, as was customary for an acolyte. Luke felt like it would be wonderful to one day be able to bury his fingers in long, silky tresses, as even short as it was, her hair just seemed so smooth and soft. Her skin wasn’t – covered in scars from their training, and often wet with sweat, as even with the AC working in the main halls of the base, so deep down the heat of the planet rose the temperatures to the degrees uncomfortable even for him, who grew under the scorching heat of the Tattoine suns. Mara wasn’t very skillful when it came to kissing, and beyond, but then again, neither was he. She was his first, as he was hers, and it was wonderful, to learn together how to pleasure one another, how to bring joy while staying quiet and hidden, even though Mara said later on that she wanted to scream about their love to the whole world. How good it feels when Luke moves just right. How she never wants it to end. 

Neither did he. But it was never meant to last.

Grand Inquisitor just smirked when two acolytes were made to kneel before him with a sharp kick underneath their knees. Ninth Sister stood behind them, motionless, like a mountain, only her lips moving the announce their sin to the other Inquisitors and acolytes assembled in the training hall.   
Luke knew from the history lessons that Jedi forbade all attachments. They weren’t allowed to marry, to have a family. Couldn’t love. 

He didn’t know how the Jedi of the Old Republic punished those that broke that law. Yet a single look at the sadistic smile on the Grand Inquisitor’s face told him what the Jedi of the Empire were going to do.

– Lord Vader would have let you be together… in death. He would have killed both of you, children, right here and now. Me, I am merciful, and the two of you are too good to just waste like that. Yet the lesson needs to be taught, so one of you will die, make no mistake. And the other one will become a full-fledged Inquisitor. Which one, though… it’s up to you to decide.

Luke-from-the-farmstead would have refused to participate in that farce. Would have taken his sword and killed himself to let his beloved live. Luke-acolyte knew that it would be pointless. Grand Inquisitor would have never been satisfied, and the survivor would have made to yearn for death as easy as from one’s own blade. 

Grand Inquisitor wouldn’t forgive weakness, just as the Dark Side wouldn’t. The only chance even one of them had to live was to fight seriously, with a full intent to win, to kill the other – and then to avenge them.

Reaching the same conclusion, Mara nodded to his unasked question. She has also realized that no one would let them leave the arena without killing the other. 

Even before Luke stepped into a familiar opening stand of Shien and raised red, just like Mara’s hair, lightsaber, he knew that one day he would bring the Grand Inquisitor’s head to her grave. 

Just like he knew that his last stab was fatal even before the blade pierced her chest, sliding with so much deceptive ease into her ribcage. The smell of burning bone filled the air, and Mara’s eyes became unfocused, her fingers clenching and letting go reflexively, her lightsaber falling with a dull sound. Her heart could no longer beat – she didn’t have a heart anymore, just a burned-out hole where it used to be – but she was still clinging to her consciousness. 

Heart wound doesn’t kill immediately, much less a strong Force user. She was still alive as Luke caught her stumbling body and lowered her, slowly and gently, onto the black volcanic sand of the arena. He snatched her trembling hand, squeezing her fingers for the last time.

– Live. Survive and kill them all. Fix this galaxy, you can do it, I know… – she mumbled, not even paying attention as the bloody spit pooled in the corner of her mouth. Must have nicked the lung as well, he thought emptily. 

– I promise, – he told her, looking for one last time into her eyes. Green, not golden. And closed the eyelids. He didn’t care if the Grand Inquisitor heard them. He didn’t care about anything anymore.

– Congratulations, Fourteenth Brother, – that bitch, Ninth Sister, sing-songed when leaving the arena along with the rest. There were rumors amongst the acolytes that this woman was the one that could read their emotional states like an open book, and yet she had no fear of him. 

She would learn. Oh, she would learn so soon, and pay so dearly.

He didn’t know how long he was sitting there on his knees, cradling a slowly cooling body. Feeble sunlight extinguished completely, leaving only lava flow reflecting off the walls to illuminate the arena. Luke couldn’t feel any hunger or thirst, has long since lost any sensation in his legs.

Was there anything left at all to feel in this world, with Mara gone?

The noise of the respirator from behind didn’t make him move. The weight of guilt and pain, misery and despair caused by his beloved dying at his own hand kept him bent over, crawling in the dirt, much more than any fear of punishment ever could. 

What could a lord of the Sith do to him that he has not done to himself?

– I do not deal with the potential Inquisitors until they prove themselves enough to earn the recommendation of the Grand Inquisitor. Today I was told about a recruit successfully passing his test, – Darth Vader finally started speaking after waiting in vain for a formal acknowledgment, – What’s your name?

Luke swallowed once. Twice. There was disobedience, and there was suicide. He couldn’t die now when Mara entrusted him with survival and revenge – for both of them.

– Fourteenth Brother, milord, – he spoke finally, carefully enunciating his words.

– Name, not rank, – Vader replied impatiently. Luke stumbled, nonplussed. Acolytes did not have names. Neither did Inquisitors. Carefully, slowly, he spoke the name he introduced himself by before learning that rule, the same rule he used back in the Imperial-sponsored public school in Anchorhead. 

– Luke Lars, milord.

– Liar, – was a short reply before he was grabbed by a throat and pulled up by an invisible hand to the level of Vader’s mask. Mara’s body hit the sand of the arena, no longer supported. Luke grabbed the sabers, both hers and his own, already knowing that resisting the Sith lord would be useless, but still willing to try, but the hand on his throat never squeezed. No, he was just being held there, afloat, while Vader waited.

– Luke Skywalker, – he finally mumbled, gathering his strength. He might have been lucky and managed to get one hit in, throwing the Sith backward with a Force push… what to do afterward, Luke still didn’t know. Running away would be pointless.

Running away wasn’t needed, as the hand on his throat suddenly disappeared, and he fell down in an ungraceful heap. Vader stood there, motionless, while the air around them suddenly got colder, and colder, and colder, and became suffocating with the tendrils of the Dark Side, gathering around in a maelstrom. Luke slowly gathered himself and knelt by Mara’s body again, straightening her up. 

– Skywalker. Son of Anakin Skywalker, – suddenly, Vader’s voice got much softer and milder, Luke didn’t even know his vocoder allowed for such a tone. And how would a Sith know about a simple navigator?

– Yes, that’s my father’s name, – he said finally, raising his head to look into the dark lenses of the Sith’s mask. The sudden stillness left Vader’s frame, he looked from Luke to a body by his side, as if noticing it for the first time.

– You loved her, – Vader wasn’t asking, but rather confirming what he already knew, yet Luke felt compelled to nod. He wasn’t about to pretend Mara has meant nothing to him, not even for his own survival. 

– And she was taken from you, – Vader continued, once again, not really posing it as a question. One could have argues the truthfulness of that statement, Luke was the one to kill her… but he still saw the laughing eyes and the sadistic smirks of the Grand Inquisitor and Ninth Sister. 

They were going to pay.

Luke knew that he didn’t say that out loud but Vader was already nodding encouragingly.

– They will pay. I can give you the power to destroy everyone who has ever taken anything from you.   
Luke stared at him with an open jaw. It wasn’t a secret that Vader trained the Inquisitors personally, but usually only for a couple of months, and didn’t teach them much. Didn’t promise to make them stronger. Just completely broke them to reshape into Imperial hounds.

Not at all what Vader was suggesting here. 

Vader knew how to kill the Jedi. Those that scattered around the galaxy, hiding in the rat holes eager to spread out the cancer of their legacy, and those that lurked on this very base, twisting that legacy until it poisoned all around them. 

– I will not be a slave. Not anymore, – Luke whispered, half a question, half a statement. 

– Not a slave. My apprentice. My heir, – was Sith’s reply, curt and undeniable in its surety. 

Vader offered him a hand. Still kneeling by Mara’s side, Luke slowly raised his hand and put it into Sith’s own, feeling the metal underneath black leather. 

– I pledge myself to your teachings, as long as I can have my revenge. 

He promised her to fix the galaxy. 

A Jedi couldn’t do it. Nor could an Inquisitor.

But a Sith… a Sith might just have enough power.


End file.
